edbeard wrote:There are quite a few rules to read. But, once that is done it shouldn't be too hard to follow.

I'm surprised by you not being able to know what attacks what. Borders are shown and anything that is different from normal is explained in the rules.

If you 'miss' an objective, I don't know what to say. If players take a minute to read what they are and see where they are, they should notice that each side (left, right, top, and bottom) have their own objective. With these 'rules heavy' maps (like DiM's maps (hope he doesn't mind me lumping myself into a category with him!)), you do need to do a bit more reading than other maps, but at the same time once you have done so, it all becomes very simple.

The difference between this and DiM's maps is that on AoM, AoR, only the bonuses are confusing and require BOB. The movement is simple and the objectives are clear. With Drug War though, the movement, bonuses and objectives all require consideration from the player. Add it up and you have a trifecta of obfuscation. You can say that a player will have to take a few minutes to read over the legend a few times but you are then selling the map and its popularity short.

Keep in mind the most successful restaurant in Los Angeles is Pink;s Hotdogs.

umm most territories are starting neutral guys. It is IMPOSSIBLE to actually start with an objective. Oaktown was worried about the ease of gaining an objective. I was saying that it IS possible to hold that specific objective AFTER your first turn. However, by adding more neutrals to the main stash, that problem would be solved.

I dunno. It's hard for me to see all this stuff as that complicated. As I said, I'll try to get the wording to be more concise. That might help qwell some of your concerns.

There are no borders missing. Maybe you can explain what is confusing you specifically? Actually, perhaps it'd be better to just wait until I update.

One thing that might help would be making the Patrol part of the sector, in that, they are treated like all the other territories. Currently they connect to seemingly non-adjacent territories in their own sector.

There's an obvious spacing issue and with the graphics it also presents a 'hard to get territory borders in' issue.

So, the artist (I won't presume to name him or show his art (although that might spark interest?)), suggested that all territories in the sector border each other. A couple territories would need special rules regarding this, but that's not too pressing at the moment.

I'd honestly prefer the setup as it is currently, but I'm trying to be open to everything and if there are no objections, it seems like a good route to follow.

I guess some issues would be if it would make the games too fast. The muscle territories which had acted as a buffer before are now almost useless in some cases. But, this could be worked around with bonuses to provide incentive.

Edbeard, I have to admit that this map doesn't grab me and make me want to play...

... Having said that, I've had a hard think about it, and I'm not sure that you should have the Patrol cars as starting points... Most people will be in the corner segments with no direct access to 'objective' territories - and anybody who starts with a Patrol car in the North, South, East or West (particularly the one next to the Driver in the North) has a major advantage towards securing the objective.

On another note, you could perhaps clear up the Patrol Car attack routes by having a picture of a car on the road (next to the Patrol Car territory), with attack lines linking the appropriate cars.

first of all, we're not joking around with anything. it is a serious subject, and we're not making light of that. But, at the same time it's just a CC map.

here is the map with graphics. Thanks Telvannia!

What you need to know

1. This is an objective map. Four different ones that all include holding the main stash.
2. There are 24 starting territories. Everything starts neutral except the 8 patrol cars, the 4 corner bosses, the 4 runners, the 4 corner junkies, the 4 counters.
That's 4*4 + 8 = 16 + 8 = 24
3. There are 35 other territories that start out as neutral
4. Number of neutrals on those territories has yet to be determined.

Sir. Ricco wrote:Maybe the patrol could bombard the junkies. Just a thought.

well since they are directly connected in the four borders, this isn't possible.

Soooo, I'm trying to think how many neutrals to start on certain territories.

We could just go with the standard 3 on all of them but I don't think that makes sense.

I think we want to encourage going after bonuses so maybe put 2 neutrals on every territory except for any involved in an objective. These could have 4 or 6 and the Main Stash could have 6 or 8.

One thing about the bonuses, I had intended the junkie+stash, counter+runner+stash and Boss+muscle bonuses to ONLY work inside a corner. So, this will be clarified soon.

But, since there are muscle throughout the map, do we want a Muscle bonus? At the moment the only incentive to get them is if you hold the Boss in that corner, or if you hold the Leader or 2nd. Maybe Muscle could have a +4 for 5 bonus or something? Or, a +2 for any 3?

Do we really need any of the maps we make here? No. But, we make them to have fun playing a game.

There are no 'Objective Oriented' maps out there. Yes a few maps do have objectives, but honestly I don't think any of them are directing their gameplay towards winning via objective. I think this map does.

thanks for the move, Coleman. Hopefully we get some gameplay discussion going!

Well, it took me a while to get through all these comments. Sorry it took so long for me to respond.

I've decided to add the What you need to know comment to my post above. In the future, this will go on every update. Additionally, I will edit that post (and possibly the OP of the thread) with any ideas that we are considering and/or implementing that have come from the thread. Maybe even include ideas that we are not considering just so people know. That way people can't complain about not reading the whole thread to see where the map is going.

Anyway, the more I think about it, the more 2 neutrals on all the non-starting territories makes sense. 4 neutrals will go on the 'objective' territories (eg: Judge, Detective) and 6 neutrals will go on the Main Stash.

I'm in the camp that isn't too crazy about this idea, but I'll suck it up and look at gameplay.

Thanks for the info in the first post, edbeard. I haven't read the entire thread in quite a while, so I'm going off of what's in the initial post.

Right now I'm wondering how you are going to clarify what the bonuses are for. Supply? Vacant? Corner?

I know it wasn't intentional, but the gameplay is very similar to DiM's Mogul map - unpassable streets, connection through phones/subways on corners. Visually, DiM's map has more going for it, so you may want to come up with something to set this one apart.

well I made this map before DiM's so it definitely wasn't intentional! Anyway, I don't see any connection between the maps other than both being in the city.

I forgot to add the "To Do" stuff to the first post. If you scroll up this page to where the update is you'll see that the Supply, Vacants, Corners need to be labeled.

There's nothing else, in my mind, that this maps needs to 'set itself apart.' Tweaking is obviously necessary though. Ideas are always welcome, but I think other than discussion of bonuses, number of starting neutrals, and possibly some territory arrangement, that's all the gameplay needs.

Also, a suggestion about what you do if I may. I know that reading the first post is what you generally do, but maybe take the time to look at the last update post (which almost every thread indicates in the title). It can be frustrating when people come in to comment and they've read the first post but not the last update. Sure, they should be similar but at the same time it doesn't hurt to look!

edbeard wrote:Also, a suggestion about what you do if I may. I know that reading the first post is what you generally do, but maybe take the time to look at the last update post (which almost every thread indicates in the title). It can be frustrating when people come in to comment and they've read the first post but not the last update. Sure, they should be similar but at the same time it doesn't hurt to look!

Right, I generally try to read the most recent page or two of a thread in addition to the first post, just so I know what the current discussion is, but more often than not I miss things. So the only thing I can promise not to miss is what's in the first post.

I'm also doing marathon sessions of responding to posts, so if I got to this one late last week I might have been a bit blurry eyed. Ah, the good old days, when I could focus on two or three maps and keep up with the discussion!

Oh yeah, the map... It would be nice if there were some method of seeing who a particular territory can attack simply by looking at the map; a color scheme, labels, or some littel graphic maybe. If you're using BoB this won't be an issue, but for anybod not running BoB it won't be automatically intuitive that you have to defend the lieutenant from the detective, for example.

And while I'm nitpicking attack routes, can you better explain in the legend how the patrols connect?

maybe we can make the army circles for connected territories be the same. It kinda serves as a subliminal reminder of what was said in the legend.

detective - lieutenant each maybe is a badge
attorney - prosecutor each maybe is a uhhh not sure
garage - drive not sure again

As for the patrol cars connecting, I'm not sure how what I put isn't clear? Patrol cars connect vertically and horizontally by sector.

Frankly, I'm not sure how to explain that better without being very wordy. Part of having a good legend is being concise. Clarity is equally important. Obviously I'm being concise, but you have a problem with the clarity. Maybe you can explain further what isn't clear about it.

1. This is an objective map. Four different ones that all include holding the main stash.
2. There are 24 starting territories. Everything starts neutral except the 8 patrol cars, the 4 corner bosses, the 4 runners, the 4 corner junkies, the 4 counters.
That's 4*4 + 8 = 16 + 8 = 24
3. There are 35 other territories that start out as neutral
4. Number of neutrals on those territories has yet to be determined.

Just done:

1. Legend spruced up a bit to be a police report/memo type of thing. Though the sector bonuses and the stick-up-man bonus need to be put back. Perhaps we'll list all the symbols that can attack each other in a row and state that territories with same symbols can attack each other so that there's space for the sector bonuses to be listed.

2. Sector Labels added. I think they hide too much of the art. So, hopefully we can have another go, at this style, or perhaps a new style.